AANB11057U Visual Literacy

The course is designed to sharpen the student's ability to decode different types of visual, audio visual, digital and other media- and multimedia-productions. Students will learn to "read" - that is, see, hear, sense - the variety of elements and modalities that different media work and communicate through. In each class, they will analyse a production that they through the program will learn to break down into its constituent components, intentional as well as unintentional ones. The students will analyse how the productions "work", notably the types of signs they use, how these are related and work together, which senses they are addressing, what they contain of relational, positional and reflexive elements; which stories they tell; "whose stories” they are and, perhaps where they "fall short" (e.g. contradict themselves or unwillingly reveal fx methods and intentions). There will be an emphasis on a pragmatic semiotic analysis that goes beyond the merely verbal/linguistic, looking for signs of all types, both intentional and non- intentional, reading the productions in themselves instead of analysing them in relation to and as " representations of" something else.

The course is based on the use of a special reading-"grid", prepared in advance, through which all of the presented works will be analysed. This "grid" will be open and in the making, so that the students along the way can add new elements when they turn out to be productive for the analysis.

The first lesson will consist of an examination of this "grid" and an analysis of examples together, so students may learn to apply the analytical model and are able to work independently in groups the following times. In the following 6 lessons, a variety of productions will be presented, and the students will in groups analyse the productions. The main parts of their analysis are presented in a common final discussion and any new elements are added to the "grid".

The productions put up for analysis will for the most part be determined in advance, but there will also be room for the students to suggests productions for analysis. As examples of productions that may be presented and analysed: anthropological film, classic television documentary, propaganda film, WebDoc, websites, "Corporate Branding” and film, architectural billboards, etc.